The Back of the Turtle (4 page)

DORIAN SAT IN HIS OFFICE SPEED-READING A JAPANESE
study that measured toxicity in furniture, and wondered, once again, if his health issues might be related to the bed that he and Olivia had purchased.

“You’ll sleep like babies,” the sales associate had told them. “The foam moulds to your body and eliminates any pressure points.”

They had taken off their shoes and stretched out on the mattress. It had been a pleasant enough experience, much like sinking into warm custard.

But when the new mattress arrived and the plastic wrapping was removed, their bedroom immediately filled up with a violent odour that irritated their eyes and set the both of them to coughing.

Olivia opened all the windows, but the room remained unbearable, and they were forced to take their books and pillows upstairs and sleep in the guest quarters.

The next morning, Dorian called the store.

Yes, the sales associate told him, off-gassing was quite common. Yes, all the emissions were within government regulations and did not pose a health hazard. Yes, in rare cases, the
fumes might irritate eyes and cause some minor coughing. No, the guarantee only covered manufacturer’s defects. But there was no need to worry, the man assured Dorian. In most cases, the problem would resolve itself.

Two months later, Dorian and Olivia were still in the guest suites. By then the smell had disappeared, but each time they tried sleeping on the mattress, they would wake up in the morning with headaches and sore throats.

The store manager was sympathetic. “Aside from that, how does the bed feel?”

“It’s comfortable,” Dorian admitted. “A little warm for my liking, but comfortable.”

“And that’s the most important thing, isn’t it.”

As a token of the company’s commitment to customer service, the manager gave Dorian twenty percent off on a special mattress cover that protected the bed from moisture but still allowed the foam to breathe.

“We recommend this cover for people with heightened sensitivities, and it reduces the incidence of dust mites.”

Dorian put the cover on that evening, and, over the next two weeks, the headaches did go away.

The sore throats continued for a while longer.

THROUGH
the glass partitions, Dorian watched Winter step off the elevator and come along the corridor towards the office. The woman had the unsettling ability to move through the physical world as though it didn’t exist.

“Do you know anything about organic mattresses?”

Winter tilted her head to one side, as though she had been asked a question for which there was no good answer.

“Olivia and I have to get a new mattress. We’re thinking we might try natural latex.”

“I spoke with Dr. Thicke.” Winter adjusted her glasses and consulted the tablet. “He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Probably thinks I want to talk to him about the biofuels position.”

“Yes, sir,” said Winter. “He did mention biofuels.”

Dorian snorted. “Cold day in hell.”

“And it appears that Dr. Quinn didn’t go anywhere for his vacation.”

“He stayed in town?”

“Archives,” said Winter. “Dr. Quinn spent his vacation in archives.”

Dorian rubbed his eyes. The ringing in his ears was back.

“Our archives?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Access to archives is restricted.”

“It is,” said Winter.

“Did I authorize such access?”

“No, sir,” said Winter. “You did not.”

“Then how the hell did he get in?”

“Archives were reorganized in the last restructuring.” Winter slid a finger across the tablet several times. “Currently, we have no staff in archives.”

“Security footage? Computer records?”

“We’re going through everything now,” said Winter. “An initial assessment indicates that Dr. Quinn was interested in the files on
Klebsiella planticola.
”

“
Klebsiella planticola?
”

“The SDF 20 variation.”

Dorian turned to the monitor. “PAM environment,” he said, speaking clearly and distinctly. “I’d like a PAM environment now.”

KLEBSIELLA
planticola,
or SDF 15, was a naturally occurring bacterium that grew in the root systems of every plant in the world. In the 1990s, a German company genetically modified the original bacterium to allow it to accelerate the decomposition of plant litter and produce alcohol as a by-product.

SDF 20.

Dorian remembered how the first reports had electrified the agribusiness community. But while SDF 15 was a beneficial bacterium, the genetically modified version, SDF 20, turned out to be an environmental nightmare. It was about to be approved for general use, when a team of scientists at Oregon State University ran independent tests and discovered that SDF 20 killed all plant life. Had it been sprayed on fields and then spread by the wind and birds and irrigation runoff, it could have meant the eventual destruction of all plant life on the planet.

“
HE
might have been reviewing laboratory notes,” said Winter.

“I understand that he was quite dedicated to his work.”

Dorian pressed a finger against his temple. The ringing in his ears was more pronounced now. He had spoken to Toshi about this at the last visit. He would have to mention it once again.

“Would you spend your vacation in archives?”

Winter took a moment to process the question. “No, sir,” she said. “I don’t believe I would.”

SDF
20 was one of those mistakes that gave agribusiness a bad name and got the public up in arms about genetically modified organisms. What the average family didn’t know was the extent to which genetic modifications were already a part of the products that they found on grocery shelves.

Nor did they know that it was much too late to turn back.

Dorian had seen the studies. Most of the soil in the world was exhausted. In California’s central valley, on the northern plains, and in the Midwest, it was dead. Years of pesticide use and agricultural stress had stripped the land of all its nutrients and its disease-suppressing bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. The only way these soils could support any kind of growth was through the extensive use of artificial fertilizers.

Like it or not, without the initiative and vision of companies such as Domidion, the world would starve.

What the average family did need to understand was that research and innovation in maintaining food production was expensive and that companies had the right to expect a reasonable return on their time and investment.

DORIAN
came out of his chair and paced the room. “I want Q’s house sealed.”

“Already done.”

“I want a full biography back to the day he was born. I want Security to review all footage for the month before he disappeared. I want to know why he was in archives and exactly which records he accessed.”

Winter stood as still as a statue, her finger flying across her tablet.

“And I want Quinn found.”

“Find Quinn,” said Winter.

“I want him found now.”

DORIAN
watched Winter walk down the glass hallway. Then he turned back to the screen and brought up the photographs of Quinn’s house. The writing on the walls was neat and organized, the penmanship exemplary.

He scrolled forward to the bedroom. A small, dark dresser stood against one wall. There was a bed, a nightstand, and a reading lamp. The mattress and the box spring looked thin and uncomfortable. Not natural latex.

Just a fugitive from a big box store.

Dorian magnified the end of the bed to see if the thing even had a brand name, but all he got for his efforts was a screen filled with black and white pixels.

MARA HAD RISEN EARLY THAT MORNING TO GO DOWN TO THE
river. It was an old ritual. Her mother and grandmother had begun each day in this manner, standing on the bank, touching the water, sprinkling tobacco on the current. It was a reminder of the relationship that human beings had with the world, as well as a practical routine for ensuring that everyone got out of bed in good order.

In the last year of high school, her English class was assigned to write something interesting about their family, and she had described the practice. The teacher had liked Mara’s essay, had given her an A.

But at the bottom of the last page, the teacher had written, “Is this the way Indian people send prayers to their water god?”

Mara had not known what to do about the question, so she took it home. That night her mother and grandmother made a pot of tea and a bowl of popcorn, and considered the paper on the table between them.

“Didn’t know we had a water god,” said Mara’s mother.

“News to me,” said her grandmother.

“What am I supposed to tell my teacher?” said Mara.

“Is she a good teacher?” her grandmother asked. “Is she kind?”

“She’s okay,” said Mara. “She gave me an A on my paper.”

“What do you think will make her happy?”

Mara had shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she likes the idea of a water god.”

“What about that story that Rose Sampson likes to tell,” said her mother. “‘The Woman Who Fell from the Sky.’ There’s water in that one.”

“Done that already,” said Mara. “Lilly and I told that story last year. Remember? The group project? You guys had to go in and talk to the principal.”

“That’s right,” said her grandmother. “He had bad breath.”

“And he was rude,” said her mother. “Told us that stories about women falling out of the sky were inappropriate in an educational setting.”

“Pregnant women falling out of the sky,” corrected Mara’s grandmother. “Rose was always specific about that detail.”

“Then he went and told us about that naked couple in that garden,” said her mother.

Mara’s grandmother pursed her lips. “After that, it got ugly.”

In the end, Mara decided to tell her teacher the truth, that the women in her family had always gone to the river at dawn to lay tobacco on the water. It wasn’t a ritual or a ceremony, so much as it was a long-standing custom, a way of welcoming the day.

“That’s it?” her teacher had said.

“Pretty much.”

The rest of that year, Mara got nothing more than B-pluses on her work.

IN
those days, there had been a family of weasels that owned the opposite bank of the river. Mara remembered how the runt of the sneak would stop his foraging to watch the women rub the tobacco in their hands. It would dash back and forth over the rocks, trilling happily, as the brown strands floated in the air and settled on the water.

Mara had worried that the animal might think the tobacco was food and jump into the river, and she would clap her hands to warn the kit of the danger. Over that summer, it had become a game. Mara would clap, and the weasel would leap straight up into the air, as though it had been shot, tumble back into the ferns, and disappear in the undergrowth.

The weasels were gone now, along with the birds and the fish and the other animals.

And the turtles.

Each year the turtles had returned to the beach to lay their eggs, and each year baby turtles had crawled out of the sand and raced the gulls and the terns and the hawks to the surf and the safety of the salt.

All gone.

Still, the Smoke was running clean again, and you could reach into the water and draw your hand back without incident.

THE
house waited on the edge of the town, a single-storey yellow shiplap that she rented by the month. It wasn’t the home in which she had been raised, but it suited her mood. Not the reserve and not the Bay.

A rest stop. A middle ground. A temporary shelter.

Mara started a fire and put on a pot of coffee. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Hardly anyone ever came by. Nicholas Crisp would drop in on occasion, and there was Sonny, of course. At least once a week, he would come up from the beach with his hammer and his bag of salvage, and wander the edges of the town like a phantom. Several times, she discovered him standing behind the house, near the cedars, but when she came out to say hello, he would flee into the trees without a word.

Like the weasel.

There was something sad about the boy. He had no friends, and the only person he ever talked to was himself.

Mara looked out the window. Where had the morning gone? It was almost noon. She should get to painting but felt more inclined towards a nap. Yes, that sounded like an excellent plan. A nap.

Maybe she would dream.

When they were alive, her mother and grandmother would talk for hours about dreams and how problems that vexed a person could be sorted out in sleep. Mara hadn’t found this to be true. Before that day in March, her dreams had been no more than pleasant collages of sound and sexuality, devoid of any wisdom.

In the aftermath of The Ruin, she had stopped dreaming altogether.

Mara took her cup out to the porch, along with a quilt in case the day turned damp and cold, and sat down in the white wicker chair. She could see Samaritan Bay laid out in the light. The church, the stores and shops along Station Street, the wharf, and the Ocean Star Motel off in the distance. Some days, when
the fog was in, the town would disappear and all you would be able to see was the top of the church spire and the neon star of the motel.

It was a scene she might have painted.

She could remember the days when tourists flocked to the Bay for the season, could remember how the town had swelled with activity and noise. The endless festivals had been fun, but she didn’t miss the press of people surging through the streets, pouring out onto the beach in search of driftwood and shells, the more adventurous individuals hiking up to the reserve to bother the band with their cameras and incessant questions.

There had been jugglers then, fire eaters, acrobats, magicians, and musicians, who set up shop along the boardwalk each evening and entertained the multitudes who came down to the water to wait for the turtles and to watch the sun set.

All gone.

And now, after all this time, there was a man on the beach. Gabriel, that was his name, wasn’t it? Curious. That was the name Lilly’s mother had used when she told the story “The Woman Who Fell from the Sky.”

Gabriel.

Gabriel had been the left-handed twin, the one who had brought chaos to the perfect world that his twin had created. So that there would be balance. What was the right-handed twin’s name? Or was Gabriel the right-handed twin?

Where had he come from? People didn’t arrive in Samaritan Bay anymore. They left. And if by some chance someone
did
find their way to this place, they didn’t stay. Yet here was this Gabriel. Mara smiled as she remembered finding him naked
on the beach. Was he really trying to kill himself or just looking for attention?

Mara held the cup in both hands. The warmth felt good. Perhaps if this Gabriel stopped by for coffee, she would ask him. Or better yet, she would ask Soldier.

All things considered, the dog looked to be the smarter of the two.